Agro about budgets

I was reading this article about the development of “point-to-point” space travel, where for example you take off in New York, shoot up into space, and then come down in London. They say,

Give industry the money and this is going to happen. But it will need $1 billion.

It always bothers me when “$1 billion” or even higher numbers are tossed around as insurmountable. I mean, that’s 0.2% of the directcost of the Iraq War so far. A tiny amount. Is this really what the goals of the world are? Think what a different place America would be — no, the planet would be — if $600 billion had been aggressively invested in research and development and science rather than in a pointless war… People seem to have high hopes about Obama’s science policies. Let’s hope they’re justified, because a shift in those priorities really could transform the human condition.